Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
College/Unit
School of Medicine
Department/Program/Center
Not Listed
Abstract
Background: Cirrhosis-related complications are associated with poor prognosis. With our analyses, we examined the potential benefit of rifaximin in reducing the risk of developing cirrhosis-related complications. Methods: Adults with cirrhosis and hepatic encephalopathy (HE) in remission were randomly assigned to receive rifaximin 550 mg twice daily or placebo for 6 months with concomitant lactulose permitted. Post hoc analyses examined time to cirrhosis-related complications (HE, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP), variceal bleeding, acute kidney injury/hepatorenal syndrome). Subgroup analyses evaluated efficacy for select baseline disease characteristics. Results: Of patients receiving rifaximin (n = 140) and placebo (n = 159), 53.6% and 49.1%, respectively, had baseline Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score ⩾ 12 and international normalized ratio (INR) ⩾ 1.2. Baseline ascites was observed in 36.4% (rifaximin) and 34.6% (placebo) of patients. In patients with MELD score ⩾ 12 and INR ⩾ 1.2, rifaximin reduced the relative risk (RR) of any first complication experienced during trial by 59% [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.41, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.25–0.67; p < 0.001] versus placebo. For patients with baseline ascites, rifaximin reduced the RR of any first complication experienced during trial by 42% versus placebo (HR = 0.58, 95% CI: 0.34–1.0; p = 0.045). For some subgroups, there was a decrease in RR of complications of SBP, variceal bleeding, and acute kidney injury/hepatorenal syndrome with rifaximin versus placebo, although there were few events reported in the study.
Conclusion: Rifaximin may reduce the incidence of cirrhosis-related complications and the recurrence of overt HE. [ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00298038.]
Digital Commons Citation
Flamm, Steven L.; Mullen, Kevin D.; Heimanson, Zeev; and Sanyal, Arun J., "Rifaximin has the potential to prevent complications of cirrhosis" (2018). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 1363.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/1363
Source Citation
Flamm, S. L., Mullen, K. D., Heimanson, Z., & Sanyal, A. J. (2018). Rifaximin has the potential to prevent complications of cirrhosis. Therapeutic Advances in Gastroenterology, 11, 175628481880030. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1756284818800307
Comments
Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
© The Author(s), 2018. Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals- permissions
missing image.gif